Mobile and fixed user equipment (UEs) are capable to present multimedia content (e.g., video or audio clips) from various content providers in a telecommunication network. A variety of hardware and software generically named mobile cloud accelerator (MCA) concur in making possible to provide the content as promptly, efficiently and seamlessly as possible. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a UE 10 (which can be mobile or fixed user equipment) receives multimedia content supplied by content providers 20 and 30, via MCA 40. Within the MCA 40, the actual manner of delivery of the content to the UE 10 may include various mechanisms like radio prioritization, proxy caching for example, using Akamai type content delivery network (CDN), and transparent internet cache (TIC), etc.
Depending on the manner in which the content is delivered, a user equipment (UE) may be in one of a plurality of states characterized by different power usage. For the purpose of illustration and not of limitation, a UE may be in one of four WCDMA radio states (as described, for example, in the latest edition of “WCDMA for UMTS: HSPA Evolution and LTE” by Harri Holma, Antti Toskala): high (when a Dedicated CHannel—DCH—is used), low (when a Forward Access Channel—FACH—is used), standby (when only a Paging Channel—PCH—may be used to access the UTRAN Registration Area—URA) and idle, when the UE is not connected to the network. These states and transitions there-between are illustrated in FIG. 2.
A “typical handset” has a 1000 mAh battery, although batteries of some smart-phones may have up to 1500 mAh. Timeouts are usually under the control of the network operator, not the handset or application.
In the Idle state, the UE is neither receiving nor transmitting. Live (although silent) TCP connections may be present. The power cost is low in the Idle state. There is also a PCH state, which is similarly low-power, and again it is only used when the UE is silent (i.e., neither receiving nor transmitting data). The current used in the Idle and the PCH state is about 8 mA—likely affected mainly by the energy profiler.
In the FACH state, the UE uses a shared channel for low-bandwidth communications. Packet sizes must be small—around 128 octets maximum, although actual size is controlled by the MNO. This threshold includes the overheads from TCP and TLS, which are 52 and 5 octets respectively, leaving around 70 octets for the payload data. Getting the UE in the FACH state takes around 2.5 s before the data can flow, although the power rises instantly when the transfer to FACH state is initiated. After a communication session ends, the UE remains in FACH state for a predetermined time (i.e., timeout).
In the FACH state, the current is about 120 mA, and the timeout is at least 8 seconds (but it may be be up to around 2 minutes). Operating a typical handset in the FACH state exhausts the typical handset battery in around 7 hours.
In the DCH state, the UE uses a dedicated channel for high (rate) bandwidth communications. As in the case of the FACH state, getting the UE in the DCH state takes around 2.5 s at the DCH power level, and there is a timeout after communication ends before the UE transitions into a lower power state. From the DCH state, some UEs drop to the FACH state and remain in this state for the duration of the FACH timeout, other UEs drop directly to the Idle/PCH state. Attempts to communicating more data than the FACH threshold rate may result in a transition of the UE to the DCH state, the transition taking, again, about 2.5 s.
In the DCH state, the current is about 250 mA and the timeout is at least 8 s. Operating a typical handset in the DCH state exhausts the typical handset battery in less than 3 hours. Transmission of data can use up to 2 W, and raising the level itself takes between 2 and 3 s to take effect—during which time the handset cannot receive or transmit, but still incurs the power cost. There are packets (e.g., signaling load) sent from and to the handset during this time.
The data rates, latency, and other resource usage are also different for different states, as illustrated on x-axis of FIG. 2. Transition between states (also illustrated in FIG. 2) occurs depending on whether data transfer activity is maintained (e.g., after predetermined time intervals with no activity), and on the ongoing application sessions. Relative power is represented on the y-axis of FIG. 2 (1 corresponding to a maximum).
Currently, parameter settings in mobile networks are not adaptable for different needs of various applications and are instead global. Therefore operators need to choose a parameter combination set based upon the application type that is most widespread in their network. For typical “Always on” applications, battery life is considered more critical, compared to slightly higher data transfer delay, and therefore setting lower inactivity times are preferred. Lower inactivity times also allow better utilization of network resources as the idle resources can be quickly re-allocated to other active users, increasing overall network capacity.
According to current version of 3GPP specification (as reflected in current versions of the documentation), in 3GPP networks, the radio states are set in the UE by signaling from the RRC function in the network. As shown in FIG. 2, there are different triggers for the transitions from one state to another.
However, the conventional systems and methods do not deliver content in a manner which takes into consideration user abandonment, thereby employing strategies that would minimize the energy used from the UE's battery. The energy stored in the battery may be fast and wastefully exhausted when used to a transfer of content that is not in fact played-out. Moreover, waste of bandwidth and gratuitous network load also occur by transferring content that is not actually used.
Different mobile terminal vendors have different approaches to conserving battery energy. When long (˜850 secs) YouTube clip streaming patterns were provided to an Android terminal, it has been observed that Android terminal employs a strategy whereby the video download is started at a high rate and then the terminal begins to throttle the download rate. One can assume that the reason for doing this is to ensure that the radio is in a low state (Cell_FACH) during most of the download period and, thus, to conserve the UE battery power.
When similar long (˜850 secs) YouTube clip streaming patterns were provided to an Apple terminal, it has been observed that the Apple terminal uses another strategy: the video is downloaded at the fastest possible rate and the then the radio is put into idle mode. Staying long in a high power state drains battery (energy is power multiplied with time). Also multiple transitions between states drain the UE battery. To increase the UE battery life, it is important that UE be transitioned into the ‘Idle’ state as quickly as possible, while still ensuring a good user experience.
The Apple terminal streams the content at high rate which means that the terminal will be in a high power state for a relatively long period and leads to fast battery drain. The Android terminal, after streaming content at a high rate in the beginning of the delivery, starts throttling the content by not emptying its TCP buffer and forcing the server to send at a lower rate. This manner of controlling content delivery has the effect that the terminal is in a FACH state for an extended period of time (longer than necessary for continuous delivery of the content), and, therefore, the UE battery is utilized inefficiently.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide controllers and methods capable to optimize the manner of delivering content towards user equipment in a telecommunication network, such as to efficiently use the UE's battery.